Somalia: the limits of military power

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Periodical article

Title:	Somalia: the limits of military power
Author:	Cann, John
Year:	2000
Periodical:	L'Afrique politique
Pages:	158-176
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Somalia United States
Subjects:	civil wars military intervention UN
Abstract:	In the current band of conflict stretching from Angola to the Indian Ocean, Somalia represents a particularly insidious case, given the dynamics of its civil war, the largely misguided and ineffective efforts of the international community to impose a solution, and its prognosis. The present article examines the progression of each of these facets and assesses the survival of Somalia as a nation State. It discusses the legacy of Mohamed Siad Barre, the ineffectiveness of UN involvement, and the intervention of the US Marine Corps. It argues that the involvement of the US Marine Corps, which started in December 1992, had as one of its fundamental but thinly veiled motives the testing of Boutros-Ghali's doctrine that the absolute sovereignty of nations in the post-Cold War era had been replaced by universal sovereignty. The rights of individuals and peoples were paramount, and national sovereignty could be overridden by the UN Security Council. The failure of the UN and US to reconstitute Somalia as a centralized State make further efforts in this direction ill-advised. Ref., sum. in English and French (p. 12).